Western St Mary is one of seven seats won by the People's National Party (PNP) in the last general election by less than 300 votes.

Jolyan Silvera, the PNP candidate, won the seat by 227 votes in 2011, unseating Robert Montague who had taken it by a healthy 767 votes in the 2007 polls.

Silvera, a cousin of former Home Affairs and Justice Minister Noel Silvera, who served as a Member of Parliament for Central St Mary, enters the election with history, as it relates to the below 300 vote-margin, being against him.

In 1962, the PNP's Stuart Charles won the seat over JLP's Talbot Forrest by 297 votes. Forrest returned in the 1967 election to win the seat, beating the PNP's Holroyd Thompson by 125.

Forrest failed to defend the slender margin in the 1972 elections, losing by 714 votes to the PNP's Anthony Capleton.

Silvera, in winning the seat in 2011, secured 1,438 more votes than Delano Franklyn did for the PNP in 2007. Montague, on the other hand, increased his numbers by only 444 votes.

The constituency has five electoral divisions: Carron Hall, Gayle, Oracabessa, Retreat and Boscobel.

In 2011, Montague won the Carron Hall (1,897 to 1,186) and Gayle divisions (2,059 to 1,682) but lost heavily in Oracabessa (1,762 to Silvera's 2,948). The voting in Retreat (1,721- Montague to 1,755 Silvera) and Boscobel (2,027 Montague to 2,122 Silvera) were close.

Of the 16 contested elections in West St Mary, the JLP has won six and the PNP has won 10.